Posted
by
Soulskillon Friday February 15, 2013 @03:02PM
from the spike-the-punch-with-it dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "Ariel Schwartz reports that researchers are working on an alcoholism vaccine that makes alcohol intolerable to anyone who drinks it. The vaccine builds on what happens naturally in certain people — about 20% of the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean population — with an alcohol intolerance mutation. Normally, the liver breaks down alcohol into an enzyme that's transformed into the compound acetaldehyde (responsible for that nasty hangover feeling), which in turn is degraded into another enzyme. The acetaldehyde doesn't usually have time to build up before it's broken down. But people with the alcohol intolerance mutation lack the ability to produce that second enzyme; acetaldehyde accumulates, and they feel terrible. Dr. Juan Asenjo and his colleagues have come up with a way to stop the synthesis of that second enzyme via a vaccine, mimicking the mutation that sometimes happens naturally. 'People have this mutation all over the world. It's like how some people can't drink milk,' says Asenjo. Addressing the physiological part of alcohol addiction is just one piece of the battle. Addictive tendencies could very well manifest in other ways; instead of alcohol, perhaps former addicts will move on to cigarettes. Asenjo admits as much: 'Addiction is a psychological disease, a social disease. Obviously this is only the biological part of it.'"

A completely natural vaccine to prevent hangovers already exists. It's called water. After a long night of drinking enough booze that you know you'll end up with a hangover, go to sleep with a glass or bottle of water by your side. Most of the effects--especially the nastier ones--of a hangover are actually the effects of dehydration. You can drastically reduce its effects or even prevent having one completely by drinking enough water throughout the night. Depending on how much you drank and how dehydr

Just FYI a quick trip to Wiki might educate you on that. Don't assume stuff and pass it off as scientific fact.It's not been conclusively shown it is dehydration. It is but one of several leading theories:

This is about two things: dilution in stomach before it enters the bloodstream, slowing the absorption through stomach until it enters intestines and in blood and volume, less room in stomach for alcohol before stomach starts to tell your brain it's full and you should cut down on consumption.

Same thing is recommended for those on diet. When you are dieting and feel hungry, don't eat. Instead, drink water until you fill your stomach. The feeling of fullness removes (most of the) desire to eat.

Most of the actual works I've seen (which are more reliable than wikipedia) have said that hangovers symptoms have been demonstrated to be linked to several of those factors, but that dehydration is by far the most significant overall (though others may be more significant in particular individuals, depending on individual sensitivities and other conditions.)

As someone who used to have hangovers quite frequently in his younger days, I can assure you that they're more than dehydration. I drank plenty of water and fluids (both before and fact the fact) and still felt like ass the next day.

Also, fusel oils (very common in brown spirits like whiskey and far more rare in clear spirits like vodka) can make hangovers worse.

The very worse hangover I ever had was when I decided to take a sculpture class in college. One of the advantages was learning to weld, and I discovered that if you had a bad hangover and took a cutting torch, turned on the oxygen and breathed deeply the hangover was gone in less than five minutes.

Well, one morning I was so hung over I was still staggering. I went to do my hangover remedy... and you guessed it, I turned the wrong knob. That gave me the mother of all hangovers! The oxygen helped a little after I stopped puking. I felt better after the instructor smoked a joint with me (this was back in the 70s, also known as the "stone" age).

The best hangover remedy won't work any more unless you raise your own chickens, and that's eggnog. Three raw egg yolks in a glass, mixed with milk and a generous amount of sugar and perhaps nutmeg. The yolk of a raw egg contains an enzyme that speeds the breakdown (and come to think of it, might just be an antidote to the vaccine as well). The trouble is that heat, including pasteurization, kills the enzyme. So grocery store eggnog won't work, you need raw yolks, and one of three raw commercial eggs has salmonella. Yeah, no hangover this morning but tomorrow you'll feel worse from the cramps and runs and maybe even be in the hospital.

With one dose of the vaccine, the mice’s drinking habits diminish by 50% for 30 days.

That would suggest the effect is far shorter than 6 months, and the vaccine far less effective than most here seem to think.Chances are, the occasional, small. glass of wine wouldn't even affect most people.

If the effect only lasts for 30 days, (or, giving the benefit of the doubt, 6 months), the true alcoholic would find excusesto miss that second shot.

As for accidentally getting this shot, don't discount the possibility of a court order, or at the very least, a courtordered choice, the shot or jail. A shot with this short period of efficacy probably isn't likely to be successfulin either combating alcoholism or preventing drinking, simply because it appears to be so short acting.

In fact, one wonders if it really qualifies as a vaccine. One of the hallmarks of a vaccine according to wiki is: "[an agent that] stimulates the body's immune system to recognize the agent as foreign, destroy it, and "remember" it, so that the immune system can more easily recognize and destroy any of these microorganisms that it later encounters."

This treatment seems merely to be an agent that suppress the production of a naturally occurring bodily enzyme, but only while the agent is present in quantity sufficient to trigger the suppression. It seems to have no lasting effect.

Having a lasting effect would be highly inadvisable. This is about suppressing one of the natural defense mechanisms of the body against certain type of toxin. The goal is not to actually disable this defense mechanism permanently, but to cause significant discomfort for the period of alcoholic trying to kick his habit. It's essentially an extra psychological factor that introduces "alcohol makes me sick" illusion to help combat the psychological aspect of dependency. After that, defense mechanism should re

Without vigilance, there might be a widespread problem with people getting these vaccines against their will.

I could easily see it being court mandated, especially upon a DWI conviction. The effect seems to be short lived (30 days for mice), so unless major improvements in longevity of the effect, it would seem to be no more permanent than a jail sentence, but a lot less costly.

A drunken Scot was on his bicycle pedaling unsteadily home after closing time, with his flask in his back pocket. His tire fell in a rut and he crashed into a wall. Dazed, he sat up and felt a wet trickle running down his thigh. He muttered a prayer, "dear God, I hope that's blood."

Does anyone really drink alcohol for the taste? Take the effect away and most drinks are a lot like drinking piss with a mediciney aftertaste.

Actually...yes many of us like the taste.

When I was a little kid and I had my first taste of beer, I LOVED it.

I love the taste of fine wines...great with meals. I love a good, single malt scotch, with maybe a splash of water or a couple ice cubes (ok purists, bite me, I like it chilled a bit).

I like mixed drinks...I like the bitter tastes of a gin and tonic with fresh lime on a hot summer afternoon, I like a real daquiri (not that fucking over fruited strawberry frozen shit)....I like a good mojito.

Yes, many of us do enjoy alcohol's flavor in its various forms and mixed with things. The fact that it makes you feel great is definitely a plus.

I'm with you. I like my scotch on the rocks, and I like to eat the little scotch-flavored ice cubes when I'm done with the drink. I don't care how angry that makes scotch lovers. My wife got me these rocks to chill the drink, but that's not for me.

Yes, many of us do enjoy alcohol's flavor in its various forms and mixed with things. The fact that it makes you feel great is definitely a plus.

I'm all for allowing people to drink. I'm not some prohibitionist.

I'm like the non-annoying vegetarians - I don't like the taste of alcohol, I don't like how it makes me feel, so I don't drink it. But I know there's lots of stuff other people like that I don't, and there's things I like that others don't.

There is booze that I would only drink if I wanted to get drunk, but there is definitely also booze that I would drink even if it was entirely nonalcoholic. You don't buy good scotch for the booze, you buy good scotch because it's good scotch.

Does anyone really drink alcohol for the taste? Take the effect away and most drinks are a lot like drinking piss with a mediciney aftertaste.

Some alcoholic drinks are delicious. I happen to really really enjoy the taste of Guinness. Lots of fruity mixed drinks are fantastic. That said, I haven't had either in a while. In related news; it's Friday!

Good wine is very tasty. Microbrew beers (assuming you're from the US, considering you equate beer with piss) can be quite good.Tequila that you don't have to crawl on the floor to buy can be fairly smooth and good for flavoring meat. Vodka that doesn't come in a plastic bottle is more likely to have a clean, crisp flavor. I will often have wine/beer with a meal because it makes everything taste better. Of course, that requir

I'll just add that they could be simply uneducated on the subject, and also what tastes good is highly subjective. I mentioned I like Guinness but several of my friends can't stand it. Many people love wine, and I really tried to pick it up a few months ago and just couldn't find a bottle that I actually enjoyed (admittedly I didn't buy any that were over $50/bottle).

Does anyone really drink alcohol for the taste? Take the effect away and most drinks are a lot like drinking piss with a mediciney aftertaste.

I'm with you, man. The worst kind of drink I can think of is a cask-aged Belgian monestary trippel served with an apple, a block of cheese, and a hunk of bread fresh out of some stupid oven. Yuck!

Does anyone really listen to music for the sound? Take the dancing people and the lights away, and most music is just annoying noise.

Does anyone really look at paintings for the visuals? Take the frame and the museum away, and most paintings are just blotches of pigment on canvas.

Does anyone really read books for the stories? Take the paper and binding away, and most books are just a bunch of words in too small a font (which are getting smaller and smaller every year, by the way).

Yeah, pretty much all of our senses and all of the "pleasurable" reactions that are brains fool us into thinking we're having are such a load of crap. Kind of makes you wonder: What's the point anyway? I mean, could this sunset even be any more orange? Pffft.

They come to like the taste because they associate it with the feelings that come after.

Not necessarily. I tasted my first beer, I think at about age 12 or so, and I liked it the very first sip I had, and I had NO idea what the feelings would be...I didn't have enough to get buzzed, but I sure know I liked the taste of beer!

I just said I'd like to see it, not participate! I think it will make for some interesting ethics discussions.

Imagine a drunk driver convicted of vehicular homicide being involuntarily sentenced to receive the vaccine. Is that ethical? Ask the victim's family if it's ethical to release him from prison without the vaccine?

The EXACT SAME effect can be produced by feeding people shaggy mane mushrooms, (which are perfectly edible) due to the presence of a substance called Coprine.

Coprine acts similarly to a well known medicinal substance called Disulfriram" [wikipedia.org] that has been used to treat alcoholism via this mechanism for nearly 100 years!

So, what you are telling me is that this doctor has essentially re-invented the wheel, and that this is news?

If you read the article you linked (I just did - having not heard of it before) the most important part of this new product is that it's a (permanent?) vaccine rather than a pill. In studies cited by that Wikipedia article, Disulfriram was not effective primarily due to poor compliance by the patient- they stopped taking the pills so they could have a drink (basically). With a vaccine, the patient does not have the ability to stop and have a drink. I think that's a significant and worthwhile improvement

Wiki also mentions " Individuals with deficient acetaldehyde dehydrogenase activity are far less likely to become alcoholics, but seem to be at a greater risk of liver damage, alcohol-induced asthma, and contracting cancers of the oro-pharynx and esophagus due to acetaldehyde overexposure."

I can see this is a good option for those that really want to stop drinking. But.... drinking is a twisted cocktail of the poison alcohol and the feelings that go with it (or lack of perhaps, the numbing) that keep people drinking. So this may be the push that people trying to quit need. If the just the drinking makes you feel sick enough to not want to drink anymore, more power to them! It may not be a perfect solution for those trying to stop, but at least it is another option. I just hope the vaccine its

I don't think they understand what a "vaccine" is. Can we (especially the media) stop throwing that word around for everything? A vaccine immunizes you against a disease, by getting the body to produce antibodies.

I don't think they understand what a "vaccine" is. Can we (especially the media) stop throwing that word around for everything? A vaccine immunizes you against a disease, by getting the body to produce antibodies.

In medical terminology vaccines likely do refer strictly to immunization against virii.

No, vaccines are anything you use to provoke an antibody response against something. This includes viruses, but also bacteria toxins (toxoid vaccines, like the diphtheria and tetanus vaccines), and other things, such as TA-CD ( which produces antibodies against cocaine).

If this works. Expect to see people get court-ordered to get an injection after alcohol-related offenses. The CJ will do anything and everything in their power to make the criminal's life unbearable, rob them of the self-esteem, and keep them in the system.

Better an injection that lasts 6 months and can teach a person self control in the mean time than a sentence to a cult-like organization that convinces you that you're destined to die unless you attend their fruity little club until the end of your life. AA's success rate is no better than the spontaneous rate of remission (doing nothing at all). Yet it's worshiped as a solution because A: it's free and B: proselytization is part of the program. Popularity != quality. Fucking cancerous boil of a religion on the ass of science. Thank god for scientific solutions like this that can finally put the nail the the quackery coffin, but you can bet your ass twelve steppers and their ilk will be out in (often anonymous) force, trying to get this banned or at least lobbying against it's use.

Oh this would be infinitely better if it was a one-or-the-other situation. Knowing the system it will be, get this shot, & take these classes. & attend AA twice a week for a year, & go see a counselor twice a month, & visit a probation officer to pee in a cup all the while forcing the person to pay for it all twice what it is all worth. Weee!

If you came up with something that would basically give you a super-hangover from alcohol, by blocking the breakdown of a chemical responsible for hangovers... it seems to reason you could also figure out how to cause faster breakdown of the same chemical. If it was really mostly responsible for hangovers, it seems like that would make billions of dollars as the first truly reliable hangover preventative. I know I'd buy it (if there weren't other worse side effects).

You must still be suffering? It's useless talking to you zombie fucks. Anybody who dares criticize the great organization is automatically a drunk. The 12 step program was judged a religion by the SCOTUS precisely because they found the distinction between "religion" and "spiritual" to be an obfuscation. You can believe whatever you want, and if you think you're not a member, being close to a member is close enough to soak up the BS as you so evidently show (if you're even telling the truth). Hell. In this day and age, watching TV / pop culture, stooped in dogma, is enough.

It prevents people from seeking or discovering or creating actual solutions if they already believe God gave the perfect solution to some philandering scam artist in the thirties. It's religion, it spreads like a disease, and by preventing actual progress, it actually kills people like one. That is why I hate it. Yes. Hate. I hate what destroys society and drags us all down into ignorance. Is that not reason enough?

The idea that people are powerless over their addiction is a load of looney-tunes. Demonstrably so. Either you stop drinking and you're not suffering anymore, or you don't, and you remain an alcoholic. Of course a separate problem is whether you're cured as in you can keep drinking occasionally like any other person, or should you abstain forever. That is a separate issue. There are many people who can't in fact drink at all, because the feedback loop in their brain is so strong that once they resume drinking, the slide into alcoholism. But if you're not an alcoholic, but previously were, then duh you have overcome your addiction. You, not his noodly appendage.

It has not been proven to work. It has been proven to be no better than doing nothing at all (spontanious rate of remission). Penn and Teller even did an episode on it (search YouTube). Pretty damning stuff. AA is popular because it is free, because people are court ordered into it, and because prosthelitizing is part of the program, not because of any inherent quality.

Sadly, due to the nature of the mushroom, it decomposes rapidly after being picked, so only fresh mushroom could be used for this purpose. In terms of taste and texture, it is similar to crimini, though has a different appearance when sliced. Disguising the mushroom in a saute' will not adversely effect the action of the coprine (active agent present in the mushroom) and will enable one to better deliver the joke mushroom to one's peers.

This is one of the most horrible and stupidest summaries I've read in a long time. Enzymes are biochemical catalysts. Ethanol and acetaldehyde are substrates. The substrates get converted into end products with the help of enzymes and energy. Ethanol does not get converted *into* an enzyme known as acetaldehyde. Ethanol gets converted to acetaldehyde by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase by the enzyme alcohol dehydrogenase, through the loss of one hydrogen atom. In the next step, acetaldehyde gets converted into acetic acid (same thing as in vinegar) by the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase through the loss of another hydrogen atom. Acetaldehyde a lot more toxic than acetic acid. If you block the enzyme aldehyde dehydrogenase (which lacks naturally in a minority of East Asians), there will be an accumulation of excess acetaldehyde, causing very noxious symptoms. This is exactly what drugs like disulfiram ("antabuse") do. What a badly written summary. Both the submitter and the editor need to read some biochemistry or learn to use google before posting rubbish.

There is also a genetic basis for nicotine tolerance. The mechanism is essentially the same. There is an gene that codes for an enzyme which removes nicotine from the bloodstream. This gene has several different alleles that code for more or less effective versions of the same enzyme. Individuals who have the allele that codes for the most effective enzyme are heavy smokers if they smoke. They smoke a cigarette, receive the desired stimulation, and then the enzyme clears the nicotine. Thus they desire another dose soon afterward. Individuals who produce the least effective version of the enzyme get sick when they smoke. The enzyme fails to clear the toxin in a reasonable time and they feel ill, sometimes vomiting. Individuals producing middling effective versions can be occasional smokers. Read more here [soton.ac.uk].

If researchers can create a treatment for alcohol in this way, they can probably create a smoking treatment as well. It is unlikely, though, that the treatment would alleviate withdrawal symptoms on its own. This approach likely will lead to treatments for other addiction problems also.

If there come sto exist effective treatments for illegal drugs, there will be serious socio-political implications. The rational for the the war on drugs will be completely destroyed. If people can choose effective treatment, then there will be no unwilling chemical dependence. This will decrease crime, health problems, and other negative effects of dangerous drugs. So there will be no basis for illegality. Will that change the politics surrounding drugs? I don't think so.

When I was in the military, there were some guys that came to work 3 or 4 times a week (almost every week) with hangovers.I'm not not talking about the "I'm a little queasy, give me an asprin" kind of hangovers, but rather the "shhhh, you're breathing too loud" kind of hangovers.

Sure, there are some people who will stop, but there are too many that won't.Now if it caused illness fast enough they haven't even finished their beer, then it might have an effect. Of course, those drugs already exist and are in use.Also, it has been proven, they don't solve alcoholism, but they do help in it's treatment.

Exactly, this treatment does nothing to address the biological factors that make alcohol addictive. Instead it just makes it even more unhealthy by eliminating our natural ability process the toxins created when alcohol is consumed. Stupid approach.

The article didn't make too much sense at first, as human acetaldhyde dehydrogenases are located either in the cytosol or mitochondria; vaccine-stimulated antibodies would not be expected to be able to block the enzyme's activity. A gene-therapy agent would be able to accomplish the task, however.

I have either that mutation or some other factor that makes drinking even a tiny amount of alcohol a horrible experience. I can handle about a teaspoonful of wine or a quarter cup of beer, but any more than that and I feel nauseated and dizzy with a terrible headache and grogginess. It developed about the time I hit 30 and the same thing happened with my mother at around age 35, so I assume that it's a genetic factor that either gets triggered with age or some environmental factor.

I was always a light drinker and never felt emotionally or physiologically dependent upon it, so my experience is NOTHING like an alcoholic's or somebody whose entirely social life is dependent upon drinking, but I gave up drinking immediately once it developed. Didn't matter that I'd just started being able to appreciate the good stuff and really enjoy it, I dropped it completely.

Can't say how it would work for an alcoholic, but I'd imagine it'd be very effective on somebody who is concerned about becoming one.

People who act obnoxious on alcohol are just people who are crypto-obnoxious. Alcohol only exposes their flaw. I wish employers were allowed to do a violent behavior screening where employees must get drunk, and are observed to see if they get violent. I'd definitely not want to hire anyone who gets violent after drinking. It doesn't take much for them to get violent otherwise as well.